- Saturday, 11 July 2009
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A little sincerity is a dangerous thing, and a great deal of it is absolutely fatal - Oscar Wilde
Microsoft's downgrade of Vista Capable specs ticked off HP
MORE EMAILS tipped up Friday in the ongoing 'Vista Capable' class action lawsuit against Microsoft, revealing the anger of HP executives who felt that Microsoft had betrayed them by relaxing its minimum PC chipset specifications for the 'Vista Capable' label to help Intel.
Disgruntled punters who bought low-end PCs preloaded with Vista Home Basic and sporting 'Vista Capable' stickers are suing the Vole because those systems can't handle the eye-candy Aero graphical interface that's featured in the Vista Home Premium, Business, Ultimate and Enterprise editions.
Unsealed by the US District Court in Seattle, Washington on Friday, this latest court filing (PDF) contains several emails sent by Hewlett-Packard and Microsoft executives regarding the Vole's late stage decision to downgrade its 'Vista Capable' programme requirements to include Intel's obsolescent 910 and 915 graphics chipsets, as requested by Intel executives.
HP had made significant investments to upgrade to newer PC graphics technology, based upon Microsoft's initially more demanding PC specifications for OEM participation in its "Windows Vista Capable" marketing initiative. In late 2005 or early 2006, Richard Walker, senior vice president of HP's consumer PC business unit, emailed Jim Allchin of Microsoft seeking assurance about the stability of the 'Vista Capable' PC specifications, writing:
"I wanted to check in with you based on a rumor I heard today that Microsoft is about to relax the WDDM requirement for Vista Capable PC's [sic]. We are hoping this is indeed just a rumor but would like your confirmation.
"As you may recall from the August 2005 meeting in San Diego, when this topic was discussed John Romano asked Microsoft for a commitment to ensure that you would not bow to pressure to relax the the requirement since it would require HP to make a major commitment to support it.
"I am told you did in fact make that commitment and as a result we embarked on a plan to rapidly obsolete the Intel 910 and 915 based platforms, bringing up and qualifying 2 new motherboards in support of being Vista Capable.
"As you can imagine this was no small feat and our team has worked hard to support your plans so we're hoping the rumor we're hearing is just that, but I'd be grateful if you would confirm where things stand."
After having spent a lot of engineering effort and money to develop new PC technology, HP was stunned to learn that Microsoft had loosened it's 'Vista Capable' logo programme requirements to accomodate Intel. It was precisely what HP had feared, and Walker was furious. On February 1, 2006, he emailed Allchin again to express his extreme displeasure:
"I see from the announcement on the OEM website that the rumor I referred to in my earlier message is indeed true. You should understand that for a partner who has made a significant investment in meeting the Vista Capable requirement we find it both disappointing and troubling that you would make such a decision without first consulting HP, your biggest global partner.
"The decision you have made and communicated has taken away an investment we made consciously for competitive advantage knowing that some players would choose not to make the same level of investment as we did in supporting our program requirements.
"Now we have a situation where PC manufacturers (and processor/chipset suppliers) can claim Vista Capable in a 'good' mode just because it will run. What kind of consumer assurance is that? Hardly one that puts any credence behind your desire to create the 'best possible customer experience for the Windows Vista Upgrade'.
"I can't be more clear than to say you not only let us down by reneging on your commitment to stand behind the WDDM requirement, you have demonstrated a complete lack of commitment to HP as a strategic partner and cost us a lot of money in the process. Your credibility is severely damaged in my organization...."
Walker didn't have to be clairvoyant to understand what had driven Microsoft's decision to stab its largest PC OEM partner in the back. He continued:
"If I were to be completely cynical about the course of events leading up to this, I'd suggest that my friends in Santa Clara (Intel's hometown) slept well last night knowing that they don't have to worry that part of their line up, non compliant as it would have been based on WDDM requirement for 1/4, will be exposed to public scrutiny."
In Microsoft's executive lair, about 900 miles up the US west coast from the Silicon Valley headquarters of HP and Intel, Jim Allchin, Microsoft's co-president of platform products and services, immediately emailed soft-spoken Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer:
"I am beyond being upset here.
"This was totally mismanaged by Intel and Microsoft.
"What a mess.
"Now we have an upset partner, Microsoft destroyed credibility, as well as my own credibility shot.
"I was away and I get back to see this mess.
"I was told all this started with a call between you and Paul [Otellini, Intel CEO]. I will have to get to the bottom of this and understand how we could be so insensitive in handing the situation."
But Ballmer disclaimed all responsibility, emailing back to Allchin:
"I had nothing to do with this. Will [another Microsoft executive] handled everything. I received a message that [P]aul was going to call. Will said he would handle it. Paul called. I had not even had a chance to report his issues when Will told me he had solved them. (It did not sound like he had) I am not even in the detail of the issues
"You better get [W]ill under control thanks."
Microsoft had no thought of reversing its decision, apparently. Due to Microsoft's betrayal of its earlier pledge to maintain high standards for PC specifications eligible for inclusion in its Vista marketing programme, HP faced losing market share to other PC OEMs that could flog cheaper machines labeled 'Vista Capable'.
That might have something to do with HP's later decision to continue selling Windows XP as a low-cost downgrade to Vista. Well, perhaps that along with the fact that Vista sucks.
Popcorn close at hand, we'll be on the lookout for more damning revelations as this 'Vista Capable' class action lawsuit proceeds. µ
See Also
Microsoft
downgraded Vista Capable specs to help Intel
Ballmer
ducks Vista Capable court appearance
Microsoft
loses Vista Capable appeal
Microsoft
gets Vista unready case put on hold
Best
Buy forced Vole into Vista capable fiasco
Microsoft
wants to freeze Vista incapable lawsuit
Microsoft
knew Vista was unready - report
'Vista
Capable class action lawsuit gets certified
Vole
proves Vista incapable
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It is of interest to learn that Microsoft "differentiated" Vista to accommodate Intel's outdated hardware and goes to show that the Wintel monopoly is alive and well. 

It is of far greater concern when one realizes this effectively eliminated AMD's tremendous technological advantage over Intel for the better part of five years. 


OMG...ROFL
I saw this happening yesterday
Vista is a pig and MS are in the s*** with it! ;-)

I saw some lipstick on the pig, speech recognition. I tried it out recently and it's ok but lacks functionality.

It can "Open Internet Explorer", but saying "address www.yahoo.com" comes out as a list with these choices:
Www.the it dot.com
www.the it dot.com
WWW.the it dot.com
Wwww got the it dot.com

I also tried "www.microsoft.com" and it came back with:
WWW.Microsoft dot.com
www.Microsoft dot.com
W. W. W..Microsoft dot.com
Wwww.Microsoft dot.com

Vista's Speech Tool doesn't even recognise web address commands. That's poor. For me it sums up Vista as something which looks good on the surface but isn't so good underneath.

However the speech tool is handy for dictation, but that's about all.
Microsoft, Angelina Jolie, and more than 25 law firms and corporate law departments announced the formation of Kids in Need of Defense (KIND), a new national children’s advocacy initiative with the mission of providing pro Bono legal counsel to unaccompanied children...

Microsoft partners include more than 750,000 companies worldwide that are building products and businesses based on Microsoft platforms and products. 

Now, with the help of Angelina Jolie and Bono, Microsoft are developing the next-generation of Microsoft Partners Program.

If HP had not wished to appear as illegitimate, feral animals, or as little vole vermin, they had better get adopted by Angelina and Bono, in Kind.

Young Hooded People are dangerous.
You better get HP under control thanks.
Try ostrichacising them by hiding our smooth heads in the sand thanks.
+1
Thanks for not layering the quotes with personal notes!
It's nice to see what a bunch of money grubbers HP consists of, thankfully I have never bought anything with HP on it (short of my all-in-one printer -- I get the ink from Staples, thanks). A bunch of belly-achin' whiners crying that somebody else is making sales that they weren't on the ball enough to take advantage of, well here's a big Boo Hoo for your multi-billion dollar corporation!
Ballmer shows himself as a great big raging ass hole, deflecting the blame cuz he doesn't know anything, wow what a great revelation there!! My response is, what's new dipshit, when did you ever know anything? Fool.
Lordy lordy, people need to get over their stupid Microsoft PC garbage & switch to Ubuntu or something else, pronto. Don't switch to apple tho, they're an even worse bunch.
I think HP is completely justified in being angry with Microsoft on this one.
They developed new platforms based on more advanced technology than what was standard at the time, at a cost to themselves. Why? So that they would meet the requirements for a Vista system to work properly. They even discussed this with Microsoft beforehand.
Then Microsoft goes and waters down the requirements, HPs superior machines get undercut on price, with consumers buying cheap machines that can't run Vista properly even though they have the right logos from Microsoft saying they can.
Who loses? HP loses sales; but more importantly, a very large number of customers buy machines in good faith and get scr3wed. Angry? Hell yeah!
Hp is angry, and so are the ripped-off consumers.
"Now we have an upset partner, Microsoft destroyed credibility, as well as my own credibility shot."

No. No good sir, you blew your credibility when you started screaming "developers! developers! developers!"

Ballmer is a gigantic idiot and his flailing about proves my point. Either he knew and let someone else be the fall guy or he didn't know and is really that incompetent.

The sooner microsoft drops him, the better.
Does he because everytime something like this happens it's always the same excuse "I have nothing to do with this" hang on your the CEO I thought everything decision had to go through the man at the top 1st.

HP's PC are rubbish anyways but they have the right to be pissed off because the decided to upgrade there systems to at least make VISTA work. And surly AMD can use this as leverage in there court case that they asked Microsoft to downgrade VISTA's specs in order for it to run on there lowest chipset when it couldn't in the 1st place and INTEL knew it. AMD never even got a word in or told about it I mean I do recall that they decided to release boards with the HD2400 intergrated into it so that would be fine better than that INTEL shite.

I wish INTEL would stop creating Chipset and IGP's there rubbish not 1 I've come across is ever good enough no matter what series it is.
viscountalpha: That was Allchin saying that, not Ballmer.